The Belgariad 5: Enchanter's End Game (42 page)

"Let's move!" Silk ran past the huddled form of the dead Grolim sprawled on the stones.

Garion smelled fresh blood as he loped past, and the smell brought a sudden, hot taste to his mouth.

They reached the massive tangle of twisted girders and crumpled plates that had been the iron tower and crept silently through the open doorway into the total blackness of the chamber within. The smell of rust was everywhere now; coupled with it was a smell of ancient, brooding evil. Garion stopped, sniffing nervously at the tainted air, feeling his hackles rising on his ruffed neck. With an effort, he suppressed the low growl that rose involuntarily in his throat.

He felt Belgarath's shoulder brush him and he followed the old wolf, guided now by scent alone in the utter blackness. At the far end of the huge, empty, iron room there was another doorway.

Belgarath stopped, and Garion felt again that faint brushing whisper as the old man slowly shifted back into the shape of a man. Garion clenched in his own will and let himself gradually flow back into his own form.

Silk was breathing a string of colorful curses, fervent but almost inaudible.

"What's the matter?" Belgarath whispered.

"I forgot to stop for my knife," Silk replied, grating his teeth together. "It's one of my favorites."

"What now, Grandfather?" Garion asked, his whisper hoarse.

"Just beyond this door, there's a flight of stairs leading down."

"What's at the bottom?"

"A cellar. It's a sort of tomb where Zedar's got Torak's body. Shall we go down?"

Garion sighed, then squared his shoulders. "I guess that's what we came for," he replied.

"YOU DON'T ACTUALLY believe I'll accept that, do you, Zedar?" Garion froze in the act of putting his hand on the iron door at the foot of the stairs."You can't evade your responsibility with the pretence of necessity," the voice beyond the door continued.

"Aren't we all driven by necessity, Polgara?" a stranger's voice replied with a kind of weary sadness. "I won't say that I was blameless, but wasn't my apostacy predestined? The universe has been divided against itself since the beginning of time, and now the two Prophecies rush toward each other for their final meeting when all will be resolved. Who can say that what I have done was not essential to that meeting?"

"That's an evasion, Zedar," Aunt Pol told him.

"What's she doing here?" Garion whispered to Belgarath.

"She's supposed to be here," Belgarath whispered back with an odd note of satisfaction. "Listen."

"I don't think we'll gain anything by wrangling with each other, Polgara," Zedar the Apostate was saying. "We each believe that what we did was right. Neither of us could ever persuade the other to change sides at this point. Why don't we just let it go at that?"

"Very well, Zedar," Aunt Pol replied coolly.

"What now?" Silk breathed.

"There should be others in there, too," Belgarath answered softly. "Let's make sure before we go bursting in."

The iron door in front of them did not fit tightly, and faint light seeped through the cracks around the frame. Garion could make out Belgarath's intent face in that dim light.

"How's your father?" Zedar asked in a neutral tone.

"About the same as always. He's very angry with you, you know."

"That was to be expected, I suppose."

"He's finished eating, Lady Polgara," Garion heard Ce'Nedra say. He looked sharply at Belgarath, but the old man put one finger to his lips.

"Spread one of those pallets out for him, dear," Aunt Pol instructed, "and cover him with some blankets. It's very late, and he's sleepy."

"I'll do that," Durnik offered.

"Good," Belgarath breathed. "They're all here."

"How did they get here?" Silk whispered.

"I haven't the faintest idea, and I'm not going to worry about it. The important thing is that they're here."

"I'm glad you were able to rescue him from Ctuchik," Zedar said. "I grew rather fond of him during the years we spent together."

"Where did you find him?" Aunt Pol asked. "We've never been able to pin down what country he's from."

"I forgot precisely," Zedar answered, and his voice was faintly troubled. "Perhaps it was Camaar or Tol Honeth or maybe some city on the other side of Mallorea. The details keep slipping away from me almost as if I weren't supposed to examine them too closely."

"Try to remember," she said. "It might be important."

Zedar sighed. "If it amuses you," he said. He paused as if thinking. "I'd grown restless for some reason," he began. "It was - oh, fifty or sixty years ago. My studies no longer interested me, and the bickering of the various Grolim factions began to irritate me. I took to wandering about - not really paying much attention to where I was. I must have crossed and crisscrossed the Kingdoms of the West and the Angarak Kingdoms a half dozen times in those years.

"Anyway, I was passing through some city somewhere when the idea struck me all at once. We all know that the Orb will destroy anyone who touches it with the slightest trace of evil in his heart, but what would it do to someone who touched it in total innocence? I was stunned by the simplicity of the idea. The street I was on was full of people, and I needed quiet to consider this remarkable idea, so I turned a corner into some forgotten alley, and there the child was - almost as if he'd been waiting for me. He seemed to be about two years old at the time - old enough to walk and not much more. I held out my hand to him and said, 'I have a little errand for you, my boy.' He came to me and repeated the word, 'Errand.' It's the only word I've ever heard him say."

"What did the Orb do when he first touched it?" Aunt Pol asked him. "It flickered. In some peculiar way it seemed to recognize him, and something seemed to pass between them when he laid his hand on it." He sighed. "No, Polgara, I don't know who the child is - or even what he is. For all I know, he may even be an illusion. The idea to use him in the first place came to me so suddenly that I sometimes wonder if perhaps it was placed in my mind. It's entirely possible, I suppose, that I didn't find him, but that he found me. " He fell silent again.

There was a long pause on the other side of the iron door.

"Why, Zedar?" Aunt Pol asked him very quietly. "Why did you betray our Master?" Her voice was strangely compassionate.

"To save the Orb," he replied sadly. "At least, at first that was the idea. From the moment I first saw it, it owned me. After Torak took it from our Master, Belgarath and the others began making their plans to regain it by force, but I knew that if Aldur himself did not join his hand with theirs to strike directly at Torak, they would fail - and Aldur would not do that. I reasoned that if force must fail, then guile might succeed. I thought that by pretending allegiance to Torak, I might gain his confidence and steal it back from him."

"What happened, Zedar?" Her question was very direct. There was another long, painful pause.

"Oh, Polgara!" Zedar's voice came in a strangled sob. "You cannot know! I was so sure of myself - so certain that I could keep a part of my mind free from Torak's domination - but I was wrong - wrong! His mind and will overwhelm me. He took me in his hand and he crushed out all of my resistance. The touch of his hand, Polgara!" There was horror in Zedar's voice. "It reaches down into the very depths of your soul. I know Torak for what he is - loathsome, twisted, evil beyond your understanding of the word - but when he calls me, I must go; and what he bids me do, I must do - even though my soul shrieks within me against it. Even now, as he sleeps, his fist is around my heart." There was another hoarse sob.

"Didn't you know that it's impossible to resist a God?" Aunt Pol asked in that same compassionate voice. "Was it pride, Zedar? Were you so sure of your power that you thought you could trick him - that you could conceal your intention from him?"

Zedar sighed. "Perhaps," he admitted. "Aldur was a gentle Master. He never brought his mind down on me, so I was not prepared for what Torak did to me. Torak is not gentle. What he wants, he takes - and if he must rip out your soul in the taking, it does not matter to him in the slightest. You'll discover his power, Polgara. Soon he'll awaken and he'll destroy Belgarion. Not even the Rivan King is a match for that awful mind. And then Torak will take you as his bride - as he has always said he would. Don't resist him, Polgara. Save yourself that agony. In the end, you'll go to him anyway. You'll go willingly - even eagerly."

There was a sudden scraping sound in the room beyond the iron door, and a quick rush of feet.

"Durnik!" Aunt Pol cried sharply. "No!"

"What's happening?" Garion demanded of Belgarath.

"That's what it means!" Belgarath gasped. "Get that door open!"

"Get back, you fool!" Zedar was shouting.

There was a sudden crash, the sound of bodies locked in struggle smashing into furniture.

"I warn you," Zedar cried again. "Get back!"

There was the sharp sound of a blow, of a fist striking solid bone.

"Zedar!" Belgarath roared, yanking at the iron door.

Then within the room there was a thunderous detonation.

"Durnik!" Aunt Pol shrieked.

In a sudden burst of fury, Belgarath raised his clenched hand, joined his flaming will with his arm and drove his fist at the locked door. The massive force of his blow ripped the iron door from its hinges as if it had been no more than paper.

The room beyond had a vaulted, curved ceiling supported by great iron girders, black with age. Garion seemed to see everything in the room at once with a curious kind of detachment, as if all emotion had been drained from him. He saw Ce'Nedra and Errand clinging to each other in fright beside one wall. Aunt Pol was standing as if locked in place, her eyes wide as she stared in stunned disbelief at the still form of Durnik the smith, who lay crumpled on the floor, and whose face had that deadly pale cast to it that could only mean one thing. A terrible flood of realization suddenly swept her face - a realization of an irrevocable loss.

"No!" she cried out. "My Durnik - No!"

She rushed to the fallen man, fell on her knees beside him and gathered his still form into her arms with a heartbroken wail of grief and despair.

And then Garion saw Zedar the Apostate for the first time. The sorcerer was also staring at Durnik's body. There was a desperate regret on his face - a knowledge that he had finally committed the one act that forever put him past all hope of redemption.

"You fool," he muttered. "Why? Why did you make me kill you? That's the one thing above all others I didn't want to do."

Then Belgarath, as inexorable as death itself, lunged through the shattered remains of the door and rushed upon the man he had once called brother.

Zedar flinched back from the old sorcerer's awful rage.

"I didn't mean to do it, Belgarath," he quavered, his hands raised to ward off Belgarath's rush. "The fool tried to attack me. He was-"

"You-" Belgarath grated at him from between teeth clenched with hate. "You - you -" But he was past speech. No word could contain his rage. He raised both arms and struck at Zedar's face with his fists. Zedar reeled back, but Belgarath was upon him, grappling, pounding at him with his hands.

Garion could feel flickers of will from one or the other of them; but caught up in emotions so powerful that they erased thought, neither was coherent enough to focus the force within him. And so, like two tavern brawlers, they rolled on the floor, kicking, gouging, pounding at each other, Belgarath consumed with fury and Zedar with fear and chagrin.

Desperately, the Apostate jerked a dagger from the sheath at his waist, and Belgarath seized his wrist in both hands and pounded it on the floor until the knife went skittering away. Then each struggled to reach the dagger, clawing and jerking at each other, their faces frozen into intense grimaces as each strove to reach the dagger first.

At some point during the frenzied seconds when they had burst into the room, Garion had, unthinking, drawn the great sword from its sheath across his back, but the Orb and the blade were cold and unresponsive in his hand as he stood watching the deadly struggle between the two sorcerers.

Belgarath's hands were locked about Zedar's throat, and Zedar, strangling, clawed desperately at the old man's arms. Belgarath's face was contorted into an animal snarl, his lips drawn back from clenched teeth as he throttled his ancient enemy. As if finally driven past all hope of sanity, he struggled to his feet, dragging Zedar up with him. Holding the Apostate by the throat with one hand, he began to rain blows on him with the other. Then, between one blow and the next, he swung his arm down and pointed at the stones beneath their feet. With a dreadful grinding, a great crack appeared, zigzagging across the floor. The rocks shrieked in protest as the crack widened. Still struggling, the two men toppled and fell into the yawning fissure. The earth seemed to shudder. With a terrible sound, the crack ground shut.

Incredulously, his mouth suddenly agape, Garion stared in stunned disbelief at the scarcely discernible crack through which the two men had fallen.